Are you required to run your crowdfunding campaign on a tight budget, like most of us? Fact is that most crowdfunders don’t have a lot of money to spend. We all know that without a budget at all it’s a lost battle but the question we all have to ask ourselves sooner or later is: “where do I get enough highly targeted, yet affordable traffic to my campaign page so I can reach or exceed my funding goal?” If you don’t have the funds to run expensive ad campaigns on Facebook or Google, you’ll have to get a little more creative to get the backer traffic you need. But just a little ;)

The Backer Directory contains backer’s names, their profile page, as well as all social media contact information and website links that we have discovered, but most importantly you can filter results by category and by the number of campaigns a backer has previously supported.

There are Twitter buttons to follow and tweet at backers without leaving the app and you can even export results to .csv files. There is no easier way to identify and connect with crowdfunding backers and super backers.

Is this really more (cost) effective than using Facebook or Google ads?

Let’s see:The Backer Directory is $249 per month with unlimited searches and connections. With an average CPC (Cost Per Click) for Facebook and Google ads from anywhere between $1 and $3 dollars, you’d get between 50-250 Facebook or Google clicks for the same price.

Compare that to the thousands of verified backers that you can connect to via Backer Directory in a month. If you made just 100 new connections per day for one month, you’d get 3000 highly relevant backers on Twitter who have previously financially supported similar campaigns than yours. Sounds good, right?

Not only is Backer Directory much cheaper than CPC ads, it is also much more targeted than Facebook or Google ads can ever be.

If you make Backer Directory part of your daily pre-campaign routine, you will build a rock solid Twitter foundation for your campaign success.

Don’t know how to go about it? Don’t worry, just keep reading.

Below I will outline a step-by-step process of how to use Backer Directory and your Twitter account to get your campaign in front of backers at a fraction of the cost of paid advertising campaigns on Facebook or Google.

Step 1: Get an Account

Step 2: Find Backers in your Crowdfunding Category

Select which platform you want to display and then select your target category. You can also filter results by the number of campaigns that a backer has pledged to as well as filter by city, state or country. This will show you exactly how many backers are in Backer Directory for your given search criteria.

Step 3: Follow Backers on Twitter

When you have found the kind of backers who you want to connect with, the first step is to follow them on Twitter. You can follow hundreds of backers per day, we recommend to follow at least 100-200 per day which shouldn’t take you more than 30 minutes. When you click the follow button for a user, the Twitter window will open. Click the Follow button to follow that backer which will trigger Twitter to send them a notification that you’ve followed them. This is a great way to make a positive first impression and invite them to visit your profile and follow you without being intrusive.

Everyone you’ve followed via this way will show up under the Backer Directory “Show Followed” tab and the follow button will turn green to easily spot people who you’ve already followed. If you click the Follow button again, it will remove that user from the “Show Followers” page.

It’s important to frequently unfollow backers who don’t follow you back. The reason is that Twitter imposes ratio restrictions on how many people you can follow in relation to how many people follow you back. At some point they will not allow you to follow more people unless you unfollow so called non-followers first. The best way of doing that is via services like Statusbrew or Crowdfire, apps that allow you to unfollow a large amount of people who don’t follow you back on Twitter quickly. It’s recommended to unfollow all non-followers at least once per month or more as needed.

Step 4: Add Backers to Twitter List

Twitter lists are a great way to organize people around interests such as your crowdfunding campaign. Here’s the Twitter introduction to using lists. Go to Twitter and create a new Twitter list for your new backer friends. Call the list something like “Industry Experts” or something else that sounds good. Each user who you add to your list gets a Twitter notification when they are added, saying something like: “@TwitterUser added you to to the list “Industry Experts”. Who doesn’t like to see such a Twitter notification? Your username and the list name will be clickable and invite the backer to check out your Twitter profile and follow you back or click through to your campaign page that you have hopefully already added to your Twitter bio.

Above screenshot shows where to add a person to a list on Twitter.com. Go to your Following page on Twitter and click the Settings icon.

Step 5: Tweet at Backers

After you’ve followed and added a user to your Twitter list, let a couple of days pass before you take this next step of Tweeting directly at your new Twitter friends. When you do so, be very mindful of how you would perceive cold tweets yourself and word your message accordingly. Remember they already know what crowdfunding is, so no need to explain that and never ask for support or money right out of the gate, rather ask them for feedback first. For example: Ask them for their opinion on your pre-campaign page setup or if your campaign is already running, ask them if they have any tips to improve your campaign. Asking their opinion shows that you have respect for them rather than wanting something from them. Trust me, the feedback you’ll get will be more valuable than anything else and those who like your campaign will back it without the sales pitch.

Step 6: Rinse and Repeat

Repeat Steps 1-5 daily for at least 8-12 weeks. I know this seems like a lot of work and unfortunately there are no automated shortcuts, but you’ll also get a lot out of it. Be very active on Twitter, Tweet, re-tweet interesting topics, answer questions and monitor your Twitter message box for incoming direct messages. It takes a couple of weeks to build momentum but you’ll see that if you follow these steps for a few of months before you launch your campaign, you’ll have a strong and dedicated Twitter following of real crowdfunding backers. Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t and optimize your strategy as you go forward.

Don’t have the time to do all this yourself? Quite a few Krowdster clients outsource simple manual tasks like this on Upwork.com for very cheap.

Josef Holm

Josef is the founder of Krowdster and Co-Founder of Crowd Invest Summit. A global serial entrepreneur with 20 years of startup, growth hacking, business development and digital marketing experience. He has a passion for disruptive ideas, unconventional thinking and a "screw it, let's do it" attitude. Josef was named a "Top 100 FinTech Influencer" by LTP. He has been very involved in the crowdfunding industry.